


On Slumbering Hills

by Darkhymns



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: F/M, Fear of Death, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, Pre-Canon, Sleeping Together, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26859550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkhymns/pseuds/Darkhymns
Summary: Colette sometimes dreams of her death.
Relationships: Colette Brunel/Lloyd Irving
Comments: 12
Kudos: 11





	On Slumbering Hills

Colette sometimes dreams of her death.

It’s been fed to her since she was only ten, all in easy terms, all in the most unfrightening ways that the priests, her grandmother, and her father could ever do. _It will be just like sleeping_ , they had told her. _You will close your eyes and give yourself to the goddess, and it will be a wonderful dream for everyone._

Colette would always have trouble getting to sleep. Hours would pass, the air so quiet and thick around her, as the house floors would creak from nothing. It made her shake sometimes, feeling sleep try to take her, while always a part of her wanted to refuse.

So when she finally does, when she can’t fight the feeling anymore, she would dream of the dark, and usually nothing else. Sometimes, there would be long, arching shadows, and of night skies that spilled out only black, the stars long gone away. But most of the time, it was a nothingness that stretched out long before her.

She knew this is what her death will be like.

Every night, she would go to bed, shut her eyes, and wait for the cold hands to hold her close. It would be slow, all-encompassing, but inevitable. She would fall into the ocean of black and slowly drown, for the good of the world. These were not nightmares. These were just visions of what it would be like for her. For a Chosen, there was nothing more important than her sacrifice.

She would wake up, feeling more tired than she ever had.

Her sleep was never comfortable, never inviting, but cold and deep. It was for the good of the world.

* * *

As she grew older, she heard about the other children having sleep-overs with their friends, and it had sounded so nice to her. She had asked, and asked, and asked. But her grandmother had refused, even though she had looked so sad doing so. The Chosen needed to be safe in her room, sequestered at night within the village. Until her journey. Only then could she see the world, dream her final dream for everyone to share.

She couldn’t risk losing that dream, could she?

So once, when she and Lloyd had decided to nap on the grassy hillside, she felt it was something she couldn’t tell her grandmother, even though the guilt was something she could not understand.

“This is my favorite spot here!” he had announced so proudly, gesturing to a part of the slope where the stalks bent slightly, where the flowers gathered nearby, the golden petals reflecting the sunlight. Already at twelve, he was proud of his wooden swords, sharpened to a blunt point. But they hung off his waist loosely from belts that were still a few sizes too big. “The sun feels warm but it doesn’t get in your eyes as much.”

Colette had only stumbled a few times when she came with him, the evidence of grass stains on her white dress. She watched as Lloyd fell against the grass, arms outstretched and smile so wide that she wondered if it hurt his cheeks to do so. But he only looked up at her, still smiling, and waving one arm near him.

“I’m not allowed to sleep outside,” she said in a whisper. _I’m not allowed to sleep anywhere except at home._ That and going to sleep was always a struggle, because she’d fall asleep and wonder if she would ever leave the hole of darkness she fell into.

“You don’t have to sleep! Laying down isn’t sleeping.” Though she could already see Lloyd’s eyes growing heavy, the sunlight, even at its angle through the branches of a large oak that stood atop of the hill, falling across his face.

“Oh! I guess you’re right.” So, with more ease, then she meant to, Colette went to Lloyd’s side, stumbling one last time before the soft earth caught her. Her hands pressed against warm soil and crisp grass, watching again how the light bounced across Lloyd’s hair.

“Like this?” she asked, mimicking his pose on the ground, arms stretched out, head raised to the clear sky overhead. It was just before noon, the sun only touching her face gently, across her cheek, at the edge of her mouth.

“Yeah! Told you this was a good spot.” His confidence was unbreakable, and once again Colette turned to see him, his eyelids half-lowered, but his smile still there.

She didn’t know when she fell asleep.

The grass beneath them was soft, the sun moving up so high that she had to shut her eyes tight so the light wouldn’t bleed through. The light did get in the eyes, but only now, only when they stayed past their time. Perhaps they had even just missed their class.

Yet she felt his warmth. His closeness. His touch. She felt his breath on her neck as she dreamed.

Once, she roused herself awake, and found Lloyd curled up on his side, hands close to her back, his mouth half-open in a snore. And she only saw him this way because she was close too, her own hands curled just near his own. It felt so much better to be close, so much safer to be close, and she drifted off to sleep again without the worries of nightfall.

Colette was not supposed to be a greedy person, not at all. The Chosen was selfless, thinking of others over her own well-being. But she was greedy to spend their afternoon together, asleep beneath the warm sun, over the earth of the world that she would one day save.

* * *

Colette would still try to sleep, feeling cold but remembering the warmth of the sun of that day. Her grandmother had clicked her tongue at her dirty dress, chastising her for playing in such a rough state, and Colette only nodded, obedient in not saying a thing. She didn’t want to reveal her secret.

Maybe to sleep doesn’t mean to die.

Ever since, she had tried to recapture that moment. She would sleep out in the backyard, eyes shut tight against the sun, hands clutching the grass. She would smell the potted flowers on the windowsills, the clean laundry that hung on the clothesline nearby. Yet still, she would wake up cold.

But Lloyd’s smile, whenever she went to school, whenever she would greet him at the town’s entrance as he rode on Noishe, would always leave her warm instead.

Maybe, she just couldn’t sleep alone.

* * *

It was at fourteen years old that she dared to sneak away and travel to Lloyd’s house, late at night, when the air was coldest and the sounds so deep within her ears. Even through winding trails, even through a thicket of trees that leaned so close to the ground to block her path, she had gone, never so awake before.

Lloyd had been surprised then to find her at his door. “Colette? What are you doing here?”

His dad, the gentle dwarf with the heavy beard and a smile so much like Lloyd’s own, had long gone to bed. But Lloyd had been awake, and how she had known he would be, even Colette wasn’t sure. He wore only a light shirt and pants, his hair disheveled, inviting hands to fix any stray locks that were out of place. She kept herself back, instead giving him a smile. “Um. I wanted to see you!” A pause. “And I.. I, um..”

Although, Lloyd hadn’t looked that awake himself, yawning a little and scratching at his shoulder. “Am I just.. dreaming?” A shiver, a brief gust of wind from outside. It tugged at her hair, made the trees rustle like soft murmuring. “Nah, it’s too cold.” He blinked. “Is everything okay?”

She looked down at the floor. The words left her before she could think. “Do you…ever have trouble sleeping?” And if he was here, having heard her knocks despite how faint they were….

“Huh? Kinda, yeah…” Lloyd yawned again, rubbing at his eyes. “I was going to try to eat something… but.. why travel all this way?” Then he seemed to wake up more. “Wait. You traveled through the forest? From Iselia? It’s dangerous to go around at night!”

Colette looked away even more. “But I’m okay! I’ve.. I’ve trained a lot, too.” A pause, a locking in her heart. “Just… it’s hard to sleep.”

_It is always so hard to sleep._

There was worry on his face, but then he shook his head, and quickly brought her through the door. “Sorry, not thinking too good… you’ll get too cold out there.”

The house was quiet, but it was different from the quiet in her room. Not as deep, and the warmth from the metalsmithing forge in the corner still made the air so heated, now that the door was closed behind her. “You’re not sending me back?”

“No way! It’s the middle of the night…” Lloyd was slowly waking up, his worry rising more and more to the surface. It scared her sometimes, that worry of his, like she was doing something wrong. Usually she was, but his hand reached out for hers, holding on firmly. So easy he did that with her, like so much else. And that was what brought her here – that easy way of his that broke through shields.

“Did you wanna tell me what’s going on?”

Colette kept her smile, knowing how useless it was. Here she was, on his doorstep late at night, and she acted like she had just found him at entrance to Iselia again. “I just couldn’t sleep.”

His hand on hers squeezed just a little tighter. “But…why come all the way out here because of that?”

How could she explain it? That soft darkness that always reached for her? That ever since the pastors told her of what would happen, that it had been harder to sleep? Harder to eat? That she thought she could hear every whisper from all in Iselia, their praises for the Chosen and the grave she would leave behind?

How had this feeling not faded, even years later?

“I don’t feel comfortable… I- I guess.” She could only say it quietly, as if worried the angels would hear, would judge her unworthy, and punish her by leaving their world to ruin. “And, I didn’t know where else to go.”

She expected Lloyd to keep pushing through. Sometimes he did that, with so many things he didn’t fully understand. The guilt was already rising in her again before she felt another squeeze on her hand.

“Colette, it’s okay.” And there it was, that smile that felt so warm, that lit up the shadows of her dreams. “Sorry, I just didn’t expect you here this late… but, you’re always welcome here!” Lloyd turned his head upwards, and she followed his gaze to the stairs that led to the second floor. “I think I have some extra pillows somewhere…”

She was speechless at first. “So, I can sleep here?”

Lloyd looked back at her, so bewildered. He laughed slightly. “Well, yeah! You can stay in my room. Kinda like a sleepover!” He yawned once more, the sound so loud it made her laugh a little in return. “Hey..” he said afterwards, though his smile stayed on. “But, as long as that’s okay with you. You can take the bed if you want.”

“Oh! But what about you?” she asked as he quickly led her up the stairs. The wood creaked underneath both their weight, the vines that streaked across the walls so clear to her even in the shadows that cloaked the house’s interior. She shyly reached out to brush her fingers along patterns of leaves, careful not to upturn or bend them in any way. The walls of her own home were bare, so intent on keeping the world firmly out.

“I can just sleep on the floor,” Lloyd said, and his voice was like something from a dream, especially within the dark. Except. The dark wasn’t cold or frightening. Because Lloyd was here and holding her hand, his voice calling out to her to keep her steady. She focused on that as they made their way to his room, on his form that guided her through the dark patches in her vision.

The floor creaked here too. The sound was like the boughs near her house, weighed down with the leaves, and the wind that blew relentlessly throughout the night. She saw the bed, the covers askew from his sleep, and wondered at her own intrusion.

His grip on her hand tightened once more, catching her attention. “Colette?” he asked. That worry again, hidden beneath the sleepiness in his voice. She wondered if that will ever leave him, once she is gone. She realized she hadn’t said anything for a while.

“Is it really okay?” she asked, and maybe a slip of something desperate snuck into her voice. She hadn’t meant to. But she was worried about what she will dream.

“Of course! I don’t mind you taking it. I can sleep anywhere, remember?” He grinned down at her, and sure enough, she couldn’t forget his occasional snores in the classroom, head on his desk, or simply even standing. It made her giggle, and he heard his chuckle skip along with hers.

She couldn’t forget him sleeping on the hillside next to her, his breath near her neck as they both laid in the sun.

“It must be really nice, to sleep like that.” She looked down, her eyes on the soft etchings on the floor, from Lloyd’s shoes, from Noishe’s claw marks as he must have scuttled into the room during stormy nights. “How come tonight you couldn’t?”

Maybe a note in confusion in his voice, still half-asleep. He had not let go of her hand yet. “I think I just had a weird dream.”

_Is it the same as my own?_ she wanted to ask, but she was not sure he would understand.

The room was warm, yet the trees outside continued to shiver in the wind. Colette closed her eyes, while Lloyd stood beside her, waiting for her to take his offer. The bed is there, smaller than her own, and she found herself wanting to climb inside it and to be drifted away into his scent.

“Did you…want to sleep?” he finally asked, again the confusion. There was still an answer he was waiting for. But did she have an answer to give?

“Not by myself,” she said suddenly. She kept their hands locked, hoping he wouldn’t break the grip. “If that’s okay.”

By herself, she fell too easily into nothing. A wonderful dream for everyone, but what of herself?

It took a long time for Lloyd to say anything.

Colette replayed her own words in her head, ashamed at their childish nature. But then Lloyd brought her forward, interlocking their fingers. He sat on the bed with her, the sound of the rustling trees just outside his balcony.

He could see through her, even in his half-sleepy state. But she couldn’t explain this to him. This was the one barrier she could not let him move through. There are days when she is on the verge of tears, but she smiles as much as she can. Those are the days that Lloyd would pull her aside, and let her sob softly against his arm, even when he didn’t fully understand.

Colette had already given him too many hints as to what she would eventually become. Still, would he understand? She was afraid of that, more than she realized. She laid her head against his arm, hearing the even pace of his breathing. His heartbeat would have the same rhythm, if she was allowed to listen.

“I can’t sleep by myself,” she said again. She did not know if that was true. She had always slept by herself, but every night brought her shadows curling around her, made her see shapes in the walls and wonder if she will always be this scared when her time finally comes.

Lloyd didn’t speak anymore. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her, hesitant at first, but brought her to him closer. His warmth was already enough to make her eyes heavy, to make her breathe slower. “Okay,” he said, voice low. Maybe he still thought he was in a dream of his own. “I’ll stay with you.” The bed creaked, the shadows closed in, but it was only the darkness of his shirt as she curled against his chest.

_When you give yourself, it will be just like sleeping_ , they had said. So Colette closed her eyes, and went to sleep, and hoped that when she finally went to her fate, it would be just like this.

And maybe, wrapped in his arms, all safe and warm, she’d be lucky enough to not wake up.

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of this was inspired by a piece of fanart that's sadly not up anymore; it was a monochrome drawing of Colette with her eyes closed and being held close by Lloyd, his face just hidden out of view. I'm debating whether putting up an imgur link of it since it was taken down, but what I loved about it was how it focused on Colette and that in a world of darkness all around, only Lloyd was with her.


End file.
